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twaddle will you disband your men and come with me in peace?"
Blade shook his head. "You know the answer to that, Lycus. I will go to
Hectoris in my own way and on my own terms."
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The man pulled his horse about and scowled back over his shoulder. "We will
see as to that. I will send a part of you to Hectoris, though the mouth will
not be so glib when he sees it. Make ready, Blade, for I attack."
Blade sent the black galloping back into the square. He gave orders to
disperse his slingers and grouped his mounted officers around him. Cheers went
up from the ranks of the Guard as they saw there was going to be a fight.
The Samostan trumpets began to ring clear in the dank misty air. The sky was
fast curdling into black porridge and the wind was rising. This must be short
and sharp, Blade told himself. He must make the beaches before the storm
struck in full fury or all his planning was for nothing.
The cavalry of Lycus wheeled and trooped by left and right flank and came into
a line of charge.
Blade was surprised. He did not deem the man a fool, and yet a frontal attack
in these circumstances was a fool's trick. Either Lycus was angered and had
lost his judgment, or he was so arrogant that he trusted his horsemen to break
the square by sheer fury and weight of numbers.
Blade gave orders that unleashed his slingers and bowmen, the latter firing
over the two ranks in front of them.
"Aim at the horses," Blade commanded. "The horses first. When they are afoot
we can handle them easily enough."
He called his mounted officers to form around him. "We are the reserve," he
told them with a wry smile. "All of it. If they break the square we must be
quick to plug the hole and beat them back." He glanced at Edyrn. "If they
break through in another place you will take half the men and see to it."
Edyrn nodded understanding. There was time for no more. The first wave of
cavalry smashed into the square with a shock and din that drowned even a man's
thoughts.
Each of the pikemen in the first rank, at Blade's orders, had dug a slanting
hole in the earth and couched his pike in it. The pikes, twelve feet long and
cruelly pointed, thrust outward in a savage picket.
Into this came the galloping cavalry of Lycus.
Blade, standing high in his stirrups for a better view, watched the carnage
with bitter satisfaction. The slingers and bowmen wrought havoc on the charge
and now concentrated on the Samostans who had been dismounted. The war horses,
fierce and obedient, ran their bellies onto the pikes and were gutted or went
down with broken legs. More came on behind, only to pile up on those dying
before them. The charge had broken.
Blade sought for the blue plumes of Lycus in the melee and found him only just
in time. The Samostan officer, his mount dying on a pike, leaped agilely to
earth and called a group of other dismounted soldiers about him. With his
sword he beckoned a solid contingent of his horsemen into a mass attack on a
small segment of the square. They came on in a last effort, some twenty horse
against two files of pikemen and javelin throwers and bowmen. Ten went down in
the effort. Ten broke through, hewing a narrow lane through the square, and
Lycus led his impromptu infantry in behind them. These Samostans were all
tough and well-disciplined veterans and they knew what to do. They wheeled and
faced right and left, fencing off a corridor through the square. A sub-officer
on the field began to organize what cavalry was left, and those wandering
afoot, and direct them into the channel. Blade watched all this with calm.
The Guard was now hampered by their numbers and the close quarters. Blade
called a halt to sling and bow fire, lest they slay each other, and sent Edyrn
galloping to close the gap on the outer side of the square and contain the
Samostan forces beyond it. He spurred to meet Lycus who, with some thirty men
behind him, was determinedly hacking his way into the square and certain
death. A death that Blade, at
the moment, had no intention of giving him.
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As Lycus and his little band broke through the square the mounted officers
around Blade watched him and waited for his command to ride the Samostans down
and slash them to bits. Blade gave no such order. He waited.
After a moment he held up a hand and bellowed a command that all the Guard
cease to fight.
Bewildered, the sweating and bloody men did so. And stared at Blade.
Lycus also, his sword dripping, his harness battered and slashed and his
plumes clipped by a javelin, rested and stared at Blade in amazement.
"What now, man? You have had the best of it. I was wrong and did not think
your Guard to fight so well. Why do you hold off? I have lost and am
dishonored and have nothing left but death. So have on with it. I will never
surrender."
Blade noted that the square had closed, healing the wound, and the remaining
Samostans were in full retreat. Edyrn came back and Blade gave him new
orders. "These men are prisoners until I say otherwise. No man is to
fire or attack them. See that all understand this."
Blade dismounted and walked toward Lycus, where that officer stood with the
group of soldiers who had followed him into the square. Blade held up a hand
for parley. Lycus, bleeding from a long cut on his cheek, showed his teeth in
contempt.
"You want to talk
, Blade, when you have us in such a trap! I was wrong you are no demon. You
are an idiot. The first rule of war "
Blade held up a hand for silence. He ignored Lycus and spoke to the Samostan
soldiers clustered around him.
"I am Richard Blade. Most of you have heard of my challenge to your leader,
Hectoris, but for those who have not I will repeat it now. Listen carefully,
and remember, for I intend to free you, with your honor and your weapons, and
send you back to Hectoris that you may remind him of these words. Here is my
challenge:
"I will fight Hectoris on the beach. Man to man, in single combat. I will use
shield and, sword, nothing more. As for Hectoris, he may be horsed and use any
weapons he likes sword, lance, mace, bow and arrow, I care not. I give him [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]